Characters are built, not drawn
The impression that kanji are thousands of unrelated shapes is what makes them feel impossible. It is also wrong: the great majority are assembled from a limited stock of parts that recur constantly.
Once the parts are familiar, a new character is a combination of known things rather than a new shape, which is why learners consistently report that the second five hundred characters are much easier than the first.
| Japanese | Romaji | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 休 | yasumu | Person plus tree: to rest |
| 明 | akarui | Sun plus moon: bright |
| 林 | hayashi | Tree plus tree: woods |
| 森 | mori | Three trees: forest |
| 好 | suki | Woman plus child: to like |
| 男 | otoko | Field plus strength: man |
These are the memorable cases where the parts tell a story. Many characters are less picturesque, and the components still make them easier to hold.
Meaning part and sound part
The most common structure pairs a component that suggests the meaning with one that suggests the reading. This is not a curiosity; it accounts for a large majority of characters.
The meaning part is usually reliable and general. The sound part is unreliable individually and useful in aggregate: it is right often enough to be worth guessing from.
| Character | Meaning part | Sound part | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| 清 | water | 青 | sei |
| 晴 | sun | 青 | sei |
| 請 | words | 青 | sei |
| 精 | rice | 青 | sei |
| 情 | heart | 青 | jō |
Four of these five share a reading because they share a sound component. The fifth shows why the hint cannot be trusted alone.
Components versus radicals
The two words are often used interchangeably and mean different things. A component is any recurring part. A radical is the specific component under which a character is filed in a dictionary, and each character has exactly one.
For memory, components are what matter. For looking a character up in a paper dictionary or a radical-based search, the radical is what matters. Both are useful and they serve different purposes.
- Components: any recurring part, used for memory and for distinguishing characters.
- Radicals: the indexing component, used for dictionary lookup.
- A character has many components and one radical.
- Radical position is conventional: left, top, enclosing and so on.
- Modern lookup by handwriting or by multi-component search reduces how much the radical matters.
The components worth knowing first
Some components appear in hundreds of characters and carry a consistent meaning. Learning these first gives the largest return, because they turn a large number of future characters into combinations of known parts.
Each of these has a distinctive shape when it appears as part of a larger character, which is worth learning alongside the standalone form.
| Japanese | Romaji | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 氵 | sanzui | Water: appears on the left |
| 亻 | ninben | Person: appears on the left |
| 扌 | tehen | Hand: appears on the left |
| 言 | gonben | Words or speech |
| 糸 | itohen | Thread |
| 心 / 忄 | kokoro / risshinben | Heart, in two forms |
Several components change shape when they appear inside a character. Learning both forms together prevents them looking unrelated.
Using components to look things up
Components are also how you find a character you cannot type. Handwriting input and multi-component search both rely on being able to identify parts, and both are far faster than counting strokes.
This is a practical skill worth having even if you do most of your reading digitally, because encountering an unknown character in the wild is common.
- Handwriting input: draw it; stroke order affects accuracy.
- Multi-component search: select the parts you recognise.
- Camera lookup: point a phone at printed text.
- Radical and stroke count: the traditional paper method.
- Copy and paste from any digital source, which is fastest when available.
Fitting it alongside vocabulary
Component study works best as a small parallel track rather than as the main activity. The main activity is vocabulary and reading; components make each new character cheaper to absorb.
Ten minutes a week on components is enough to make the difference, and it pays back across every character you meet afterwards.
The kanji games on Unihongo's kanji page drill recognition speed, which is the layer above this: components make characters memorable, and drilling makes them fast.
If characters are not sticking, learn components. If characters stick but reading is slow, learn vocabulary. The two problems have different fixes.